


Djarin; Clan of One

by gayshitiguess



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Boba fett is a dad, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2 Spoilers, honestly very little comfort, im sorry, let him be din’s dad, listen, my heart hurts, somebody has to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28156995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayshitiguess/pseuds/gayshitiguess
Summary: He hadn’t put the helmet back on.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Boba Fett, Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 67
Kudos: 654





	Djarin; Clan of One

**Author's Note:**

> I stayed up until 3AM to watch the season finale and then stayed up another hour crying. Din must feel my pain. Be warned; MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.

He hadn’t put the helmet back on. It wasn’t an act of dedication to his Creed, to The Way that he had learned wasn’t the Only Way, to a belief that was no longer the most important aspect of his life. He sat, loose limbed on Slave I, staring forward with eyes unencumbered by a visor. He had never realized that Dune’s tattoos were that particular shade of red-orange, or that Fennec’s hair wasn’t exactly black, but something closer to midnight blue 

He hadn’t known that the kid’s- that Grogu’s eyes were that shade of brown, and in them were flakes of green and a brown so close to red that he had been startled by the sight of them. 

His skin still burned where those little fingers had traces against his cheek. 

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, tried to forcibly excise the thought from his head. It was no use mourning something that he had been striving for for all this time. This was what he wanted. 

His ribs ached. There were cuts and bruises scattered across the unarmoured parts of his body. Between he Dark Trooper and Gideon, he was beaten up far worse than he had originally estimated. He was sure that, if he had faced Bo-Katan on the bridge of that ship like she wanted, he would have lost for more reasons than one. Fett had managed to talk (or more accurately, threaten, with Fennec and Dune siding with him), Kryze into giving him a reprieve before they decided the fate of the blade. Fett and Fennec had dutifully flanked him as they boarded Slave I and Dune remained aboard the cruiser to monitor the Mandalorians. Protected from those who had only hours ago fought by his side. From those who had taken his Creed. The blade was heavy on his belt, and so he took it off, handed it to Fennec without a word, and she nodded with silent understanding. 

His quest was complete. His foundling was returned to his own kind. Djarin was a clan of one. 

He began to systematically remove his armor, even as the thought that his allies were close enough to catch a glimpse of him revolted in the back of his mind. Perhaps it was a yielding of his beliefs that he had given the moment he stepped into the Trooper armor. Perhaps it was a simple recognition that he could no longer claim his Way after showing his face. That he was no longer a ‘Child of the Watch’ as Kryze had called him. Or perhaps it was an unshackling. A form of giving up. His armor was heavy. Every day it weighed a pound more, pulled him closer to the ground. Every day, he gave up food, sleep, company, in favor of a Creed. His armor protected him, but as it slipped from his shoulders, he breathed in a lungful of air, and blew it out. It didn’t burst back against his face in a rush of hot breath. He didn’t suck in the same carbon dioxide again and again. His protection was gone, strewn across a bench on a ship that wasn’t his, that housed two very skilled gunmen whom he hadn’t always been on agreeing terms with. If either of them decided his time was up, then there was no stopping them. And he didn’t know if he would ever have it in him to put the armor back on again. 

He had never been alone before. Ever since he was a child, and even when he traveled for months on end, contained alone in the Razorcrest, he knew that his commune was waiting back on Navarro. That his siblings in the Creed were there with him, scattered across the stars. Now that commune was gone, it’s members dead, and the foundling that they had sacrificed themselves for was gone as well. The Mandalorians he had met seemed more forgien than any creature he’d ever had to fight, more distant than his enemies. There wasn’t even the comfort in believing in his Creed anymore. He’d given that up for a child he’d given away. 

Djarin was a clan of one. 

As he removed his chest plate and began to pat around his torso for delicate areas, his hand found a lump among his jumpsuit. He was confused for a moment, thinking it might have been a piece of shrapnel, but once he closed his fingers over it, he remembered. The ball. 

He’d scoured the remains of the Razorcrest for that ball, tucked it away in a safe place so that, when he found his kid, he could return it. And he did find his kid. And he gave his kid away. And he never gave it back to him. 

The cold metal weighed his hand down. He felt something rising in him. Maybe it was bile or blood or a scream so desperate and painful that it would tear him apart. Whatever it was, he swallowed it down with his jaw clenched. 

This was what he wanted. 

“You’ll do yourself no good holding it all in,” A voice cut his concentration, and something like a sob escaped his throat. Fett’s helmet was off, and his eyes were full of grief. Din stared at him for a moment, felt heat and shame rise up in his face. Fett smiled a twisted, sympathetic smile. “Don’t just stand there looking like a kicked loth-cat. Cry. Scream. Do something.” 

He considered his options for a moment, hunched and huddled in the small cargo area of Fett’s ship, his entire life splayed out before him. And his eyes came back to the ball in his hand. 

“I was-“ he held his hand out, tried to convey in that movement the severity of his mistake. “I didn’t give it to him.” 

His knees were weak, and so he sat heavily, his body sagging under the weight of it all. His armor was off. The pauldron with his crest was on the floor in front of him, and he tried to remember how hot of a flame he needed to melt the thing down. To pour it into something new. To make a weapon, a chain, to pour it down his fucking throat and feel it burn. 

A hand hit his back, in what was probably meant to be a comforting pat, but came out as more of a sharp strike. He coughed around his sobs, and realized that he was indeed sobbing, shaking with the effort of it, shouting out his grief around bruised ribs. 

“Let it out, boy,” Fett instructed. “You’ve suffered a great loss.” Din shook his head back and forth minutely. 

“This is what I wanted.” He choked out. “This is The Way.” 

“Fuck The Way,” Fett replied, the blasphemy familiar and easy on his tongue. “I have never known a father to lose his son easily. You aren’t just a suit of armor. You are a  _ man.”  _

And so Din sat, sobbing against his knees as Fett stood next to him, gently reminding him of his humanity just when it started to slip from his mind. Djarin was a clan of one, but so was Fett, and the two clans met at the common ground of this tiny ship, strewn in armor, filled with sobs and grief so palpable it made it difficult to breathe. 

“You’ll see him again,” Fett whispered to him. “And you’ll give it to him then. You’ll see him again.” 


End file.
